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Haven't played Magic in like 5 years, but I got a random urge to, stopped by my gamestore on the way home and chatted with the owner, and he claims their Friday Night draft games are super chill and not crazy cutthroat, so it looks like I'm getting back in.

Apparently my old deck (Which made my friends stop playing with me because I had apparently gotten too into "bullshit unfair combos", and hence made me stop playing because if the friends who got me into it won't play with me, what's the point) is still even mostly Modern-legal, if I find something to replace Green Sun's Zenith. Gamestore Owner said he'd be happy to take a look at what I have and advise me on how to build given the past few years of meta whenever he has downtime. I can't wait to see how he curbstomps my deck and laughs about how my friends counldn't find any way to deal with it at the time. Also I bought 3 boosters on my way out just to reignite the Cardboard Crack High, and I got http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Growing Rites of Itlimoc , which is pretty much a perfect fit into my 5 year old modern deck that relies on tons of cheap creatures and tokens and ramping up mana production. It's a sign.

I kinda want to dip my toes into Commander too, if I get a chance, it always sounded interesting and I've never tried it.

Haven't played Magic in like 5 years, but I got a random urge to, stopped by my gamestore on the way home and chatted with the owner, and he claims their Friday Night draft games are super chill and not crazy cutthroat, so it looks like I'm getting back in.

Apparently my old deck (Which made my friends stop playing with me because I had apparently gotten too into "bullshit unfair combos", and hence made me stop playing because if the friends who got me into it won't play with me, what's the point) is still even mostly Modern-legal, if I find something to replace Green Sun's Zenith. Gamestore Owner said he'd be happy to take a look at what I have and advise me on how to build given the past few years of meta whenever he has downtime. I can't wait to see how he curbstomps my deck and laughs about how my friends counldn't find any way to deal with it at the time. Also I bought 3 boosters on my way out just to reignite the Cardboard Crack High, and I got http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Growing Rites of Itlimoc , which is pretty much a perfect fit into my 5 year old modern deck that relies on tons of cheap creatures and tokens and ramping up mana production. It's a sign.

I kinda want to dip my toes into Commander too, if I get a chance, it always sounded interesting and I've never tried it.

Commander varies in how cutthroat people are with it. The precons are a really good starting point since they include a number of useful staples (Sol Ring, Command Tower). The commanders in the decks are solid as well and generally all have clear build-around-me type effects.

Haven't played Magic in like 5 years, but I got a random urge to, stopped by my gamestore on the way home and chatted with the owner, and he claims their Friday Night draft games are super chill and not crazy cutthroat, so it looks like I'm getting back in.

Apparently my old deck (Which made my friends stop playing with me because I had apparently gotten too into "bullshit unfair combos", and hence made me stop playing because if the friends who got me into it won't play with me, what's the point) is still even mostly Modern-legal, if I find something to replace Green Sun's Zenith. Gamestore Owner said he'd be happy to take a look at what I have and advise me on how to build given the past few years of meta whenever he has downtime. I can't wait to see how he curbstomps my deck and laughs about how my friends counldn't find any way to deal with it at the time. Also I bought 3 boosters on my way out just to reignite the Cardboard Crack High, and I got http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Growing Rites of Itlimoc , which is pretty much a perfect fit into my 5 year old modern deck that relies on tons of cheap creatures and tokens and ramping up mana production. It's a sign.

I kinda want to dip my toes into Commander too, if I get a chance, it always sounded interesting and I've never tried it.

The yearly pre-cons they put out for Commander are amazingly solid decks and a great place to start should you feel the need to act on that urge.

Draft was really fun! In my first few picks I was able to grab 2 Charging Monstrosaurs and 2 Kinjalli's Caller, so I was like "Welp guess I'm doing red/white dinos". Ended up getting several more red dinos, a Sky Terror, some Raptor Companions, and fleshed out the rest of my curve with white vampires, since it seemed everyone else in my group was passing up on all the vampires.

And I won my first 2 rounds (2-1 each time)! BARELY lost my third one because I was trying to hurry the game up so I didn't miss my bus and I slightly miscalculated, letting my opponent swing on me for exactly my life total.

I think my favorite part of the games was in my first round, it was neck and neck, both me and my opponent were low and had a few decent creatures on the board, him way more than me. I had exactly enough mana on the board to be able to play a Charging Monstrosaur, but my opponent had enough blocking potential to kill it, and then I'd have nothing that could get past his creatures and he'd be able to kill me in 1-2 turns. So instead, I paid 2 mana to put down Cobbled Wings, leave 2 mana untapped, 2 cards left in my hand are a plains and the Monstrosaur. And then I swing in with 2 weak creatures that my opponent could VERY easily block and kill.

So obviously, he thinks, I've got some sort of combat trick instants in my pocket I'm trying to bait him into blocking for, and so he lets the damage go through, bringing him down to 4 health. Attacks on his turn with just enough that I HAVE to block some of it, and I do, sacrificing every single creature I had on the board except for the 2 I attacked with just to survive to my next turn.

Plus the actual process of drafting and figuring out your gameplan as you get the cards in real time was really fun, I almost want to start playing MTG Online just so I can do drafting more and get more practice.

edit: Oh, also, I dragged a friend with me for moral support who also hasn't played Magic in forever. He drafted a pretty decent deck, but still lost his first two rounds. But his 3rd opponent had to leave early, so he won that round by default. The store was out of Ixalan boosters so he got a booster from Hour of Devastation. And his rare was a card neither of us had ever seen before, a humble little chap known as The Scarab God. We both start reading it and it's like that scene from The Wire where an entire conversation is held with both people only using the word "Fuck." with various inflections. And then I look up how much the card is worth, and my friend is STOKED. But now he says he's not sure if he's going to stick with magic enough to keep it or sell it, and he offered to sell it to me at a discount since he wouldn't even have it if I hadn't dragged him along, so now I'm considering buying it and making a zombie commander deck.

Legion's Judgment, Slash of Talons, and Snapping Sailback are removal; River Herald's Boon can be interactive but not in a deck with 0 merfolk.

Sailback isn't removal. Legions Judgment isn't reliable because this format has tons of 3-power threats, the black 3 or less is far better. Slash of Talons is a decent tempo option though, since 3/2 is common.

Sailback kills a ground attacker 3/4 or smaller and lives as a 5/5 (which will demand an answer from your opponent), or trades with a larger one that doesn't have 5+ toughness. If it's not removal you're doing it wrong. Is it perfect? No, but green removal rarely is.

Ok I think I'm officially hooked. Bought a couple boosters on my way home from work when I stopped in because I forgot to return my lands I borrowed during the FNM draft. In said packs, I got Hostage Taker and Revel In Riches. I'm not even done assembling my vampires deck and I'm already brainstorming a black/blue treasure/control deck after reading about some interesting interactions treasure tokens make possible.

I love the idea of having a Marionette Master just hanging out on the board, and a couple turns later, spending 5 treasures to cast something that takes my opponent by surprise. And the second it resolves that I was able to sacrifice the treasure tokens, I can just say "oh btw I just won. Those 5 treasure tokens dealt 20 damage to you when I cashed them in. GG." Revel in Riches itself seems like a great distraction card to make the opponent think of your treasures as less of a spendable resource and more of a victory tracker.

Ok I think I'm officially hooked. Bought a couple boosters on my way home from work when I stopped in because I forgot to return my lands I borrowed during the FNM draft. In said packs, I got Hostage Taker and Revel In Riches. I'm not even done assembling my vampires deck and I'm already brainstorming a black/blue treasure/control deck after reading about some interesting interactions treasure tokens make possible.

I love the idea of having a Marionette Master just hanging out on the board, and a couple turns later, spending 5 treasures to cast something that takes my opponent by surprise. And the second it resolves that I was able to sacrifice the treasure tokens, I can just say "oh btw I just won. Those 5 treasure tokens dealt 20 damage to you when I cashed them in. GG." Revel in Riches itself seems like a great distraction card to make the opponent think of your treasures as less of a spendable resource and more of a victory tracker.

Well congrats, Hostage Taker is currently the second most expensive card of the set.

And alternate win condition cards are always fun to build around, even if they're not always the most competitive.

Got all my cards for my vampires deck today... And then I watched a YT vid on the merits of double-sleeving your decked cards just as a matter of precaution, so now I've ordered some Perfect Fits and I'm waiting because I don't want to resleeve this entire deck before Standard Night on Thursday.

I think I might stand a chance though. Even if it doesn't do as well as I hope at standard night, I think it's a really solid easy-to-learn-magic-with deck if I manage to get any friends interested in trying the game out, and will be a good baseline deck to test my treasure horde deck against.

Double-sleeving has always struck me as being overly cautious, especially for Standard decks that change so frequently. I understand it a bit more for Commander or older formats, where the cards are more valuable and don't rotate out.

My friend double-sleeved his peasant cube (filled with foils, tbf), which was an exercise in madness.

I've always tended to love Dragonshield sleeves. I have a bunch of ultra pro ones now since they are super cheap at a local Walmart for certain things but I always go Drago for when I'm actually play something

I've been on Matte Dragonshields for awhile since I've been playing a lot of commander, but I've been meaning to try out the Eclipse sleeves for awhile. I may get some for my Modern deck which desperately needs new sleeves. Especially since I switch out a lot of cards and Dragonshields + Perfect Fits = frustration. The only problem is finding some in a color I like. The blue is nice but doesn't go with Abzan colors... Maybe the magenta?

Dudes! What is going on with Commander 2016 prices?? I bought Commander 2015 and Commander 2016 together for $295 a few weeks ago from a guy on craigslist and now I feel like I robbed the man. From Amazon: